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I've never paid Eldar much attention, although now that i'm reading the fluff and got a large tax return AND my friend is unloading his army i was thinking of picking some up. I don't wanna be that guy though, with both Eldar and Tau, so I'm probably going for a Eldar/Deldar combined list. I know there is a lot of hate on Eldar though, can someone explain what the hate is on (I know wave serpent spam, anything else?)

Just ignore it and play whatever you like

In Eternal War games with Objectives needing to be taken last turn, Jetbikes get massive hate. They still get hate know, but not as much. MASSIVE mobility and MEQ defense.

War Walkers used to get some minor hate for being able to run behind walls after shooting. Enemy can't shoot what they can't see.

Howling Banshees get so much hate these days. But that's from Eldar players because Banshees just are not good.

One thing that pulls hate with Eldar and Dark Eldar is a Farseer casting Invisibility on nine Reavers with max Blasters and Caltrops. Or Wraithguard/Fire Dragons/other high strength unit with an Archon with Webway Portal.

Again, getting hate means these things work (Banshees excluded). Don't be scared to use them. If you don't spam things, you're still being friendly enough for the vast majority of environments. Use what you like, what fits your lists and enjoy the army. At the end of the day, there's a place in the world where Serpent Spam lists are also treated as normal, common and accepted.

SeerCouncil was also hated due to re-rollable 2++ but with the Baron gone that's no longer a good option (can still do it with Archon, but Archon is slow in Jetbike list - and Shadowfield got nerfed with the FAQ).

I'd honestly just ignore it. If playing against Eldar, I wouldn't fault you for bringing one or two Wave Serpents, they are after all your best transport, make use of your best units. That's like saying Nids shouldn't bring Flyrants or Tau shouldn't use Riptides, or Space Wolves shouldn't use TWC.

Just don't spam, be polite/courteous and you shouldn't have a problem in your gaming club.

Eldar killed John F Kennedy.

Eldar have been hated since 2nd, they do everything you can do but better and faster.

The ranger disruption table army
The immortal falcons
The boxing warlocks

Its nothing new, eldar are powered down and marines take over for awhile then eldar are boosted back and knock them back. Its been the constant cycle.

Let's look at it from another way. These are plastic toy soldiers. You don't want to play with plastic toy soldiers just because some strangers on the internet don't like them?

If you like them play them. If you like the fluff and minis play them. Don't worry about what strangers say on the internet. Ironic eh? I am a stranger telling you to not worry about what other strangers say.

Your time, your money your fun. Don't let anyone else tell you how to have fun. Anyways I am sure you are not TFG and if you see something over powering you wouldn't keep using it in a friendly game.

Davor wrote:
Let's look at it from another way. These are plastic toy soldiers. You don't want to play with plastic toy soldiers just because some strangers on the internet don't like them?

If you like them play them. If you like the fluff and minis play them. Don't worry about what strangers say on the internet. Ironic eh? I am a stranger telling you to not worry about what other strangers say.

Your time, your money your fun. Don't let anyone else tell you how to have fun. Anyways I am sure you are not TFG and if you see something over powering you wouldn't keep using it in a friendly game.

The problem is you don't play strangers on the internet.

You play flesh and blood people standing directly across from you at a table. People who have also spent large chunks of change on their toy soldiers, and whom you're probably going to see (relatively) often and play with more than once. If you show up with a list that abuses all the strengths of your codex, and you go up against people who play weaker books and perhaps less optimized lists, they'll get steam rolled. They won't enjoy it at all - and mutual enjoyment is very much key.

Footdar has left most of my opponents happy.

Throw in a bunch of melee threats and little 24"+, and Ork players have a lot of fun.

A demi-company styled list always seems to make for an enjoyable game for both players.

That said, you wouldn't believe the hate Banshees and Rangers get incredible hate - because they can battle focus and Bladestorm - despite being crappy (and those rules not really mattering on them).

Focus on your opponent enjoying himself. Make sure he has options. And if you win a lot (60%?) tone down your list against those players.

(That last part goes for any faction)

Me and some people at my local store despise them because literally every weapon has good AP and/or good special rules. And every unit has a ton of special rules. It's just obnoxious.

I only dislike their strange habitual need to perform a ceremonial riverdance at the beginning of every battle.

What? I can't be the only one who saw that.

 morganfreeman wrote:

Davor wrote:
Let's look at it from another way. These are plastic toy soldiers. You don't want to play with plastic toy soldiers just because some strangers on the internet don't like them?

If you like them play them. If you like the fluff and minis play them. Don't worry about what strangers say on the internet. Ironic eh? I am a stranger telling you to not worry about what other strangers say.

Your time, your money your fun. Don't let anyone else tell you how to have fun. Anyways I am sure you are not TFG and if you see something over powering you wouldn't keep using it in a friendly game.

The problem is you don't play strangers on the internet.

You play flesh and blood people standing directly across from you at a table. People who have also spent large chunks of change on their toy soldiers, and whom you're probably going to see (relatively) often and play with more than once. If you show up with a list that abuses all the strengths of your codex, and you go up against people who play weaker books and perhaps less optimized lists, they'll get steam rolled. They won't enjoy it at all - and mutual enjoyment is very much key.

Thing is, from what I gather the OP is not TFG. He wants to play Eldar because he likes them. So for what ever reason he likes them, he is playing them not because they are powerful but because he likes the fluff, minis or what ever else reason. I am sure he wouldn't be taking the most powerful build to play. So he is asking if he plays them will he still get flack even if he doesn't use the "Power Builds".

Hence why I said, "He is not TFG", if he took a powerful build and didn't know it, he would change it for the next game so it's not so powerful. So play Eldar and have fun with it.

OP: Yes. Yes they are.

Jetbikes with ungodly movement, serpents, wraithknights, pseudo rending, farseers casting summoning/invis with 1 WC.

There are lots of reasons to go around lol.

There are certain units (like mentioned above) that are OP.

The main dislike though comes because of a small minority of eldar players who give others a bad name. I'm not talking about those who bring a serp spam to a competitive game - that is completely fine. I'm talking about the few who go on and on about how eldar are balanced, how serpents are overcosted, how eldar have poor psychic powers and poor army wide rules, and then go on to tell people the only reason they are losing against eldar is because they are not good enough generals and make out how much better they are than them by winning all the time with poor eldar armies. They then proceed to make sweeping generalizations, conveniently ignore anything that goes against what they spout and generally just lie through their teeth. Now this type of attitude is drawn towards the most powerful armies to collect, it's the nature of the beast, which makes it more frustrating (there are a few on dakka that fit this description, but you can count them on one hand thats had an accident with a chainsaw). As long as you don't adopt this attitude and make sure to inform your opponents before hand if you are going cut throat list or not, you will have no problems from the majority of people.

My most regular opponent has been playing eldar through the good times and bad. He has recently bought 5 more grav tanks so now has 12. I have no problem with this because he is a good sport and is just as likely to take a fluffy list as a cut throat list. Somebody shouldn't be criticized for improving their army. And he is great fun to battle with. He accepts that Eldar are a very high power codex so there is no superiority tension that some (note - very few) eldar players give off.

I know my Eldar have been build as a simple-all-comers list. They are pretty much on an even give-and-take setting when it comes to power. I don't have a Wraithknight, nor do I spam Wave Serpents or Warwalkers.

I have a moderately high amount of jetbikes, but that's because of the origin of my army. Back in the days of 4th edition a guy my friend knew was getting completely out of the game and simply giving away his stuff. In the deal I got a free 1500pt army of Space Wolves 13th Company, and about 2000pts of Dark Eldar that had at least a dozen reavers jetbikes in it.

But man, I really hated the original Dark Eldar playstyle/design, and wanted something to do with all those free models. So I decided to make a "counts as" army, using lots of the Dark Eldar models to stand in for Eldar. I figured a Corsair army (this is before the FW list existed, I was going off old Rogue Trader/2nd edition fluff) would look alot like a Saim-Hann army. So I painted up the Reavers as really savage-looking Eldar Jetbikes, and converted a couple squads of Warriors to be standard Guardians/Storm Guardian, using actual Eldar Aspects and other material.

Because they operate outside of the normal Craftworld lifestyle, they have never had a Jetbike Seer Council, even when those came out way back in 3rd edition with the Eye of Terror eldar list.

So yeah, I field Eldar, but I also field a squad of Storm Guardians, so I must not be anywhere near being TFG.

 luky7dayz wrote:
I know there is a lot of hate on Eldar though, can someone explain what the hate is on (I know wave serpent spam, anything else?)

Big Blind Bill and Poly Ranger pretty much summed it up.
Eldar have a lot of good units in their army, with special rules that make some of their already good abilities even better. Example: You have a unit of BS4 3+ save guys, all of them have meltaguns. But they can both run and shoot in the shooting phase. And they have fleet, so if they don't like that distance they can try again....meaning that their melta range is effectively closer to 9-10" then 6". Or a fast skimmer that has 4 twin-linked shots, that twin-link the other guns if it scores even one hit...the other gun having an average of 4.5 shots at S7 that ignore cover. Oh, and if you want to shoot at it...3+ jink, and snapshots don't hurt it so much. Or a unit of T6 guys with S4 AP2 flamers...if they roll a 6 to wound it's instant death. And don't forget about Hornets, Wraithknights, and psychic Farseers. Add in some webway portal action via DE allies and you can put whatever you want wherever you want...GK don't even have no-scatter DS anymore. Eldar also have some of the best LOW.

Eldar have an answer to almost anything, and is one of the few armies that can (especially at low point levels) take something close to a take-all-comers list. Furthermore, while at large tournaments they have their limits (as we saw at LVO); in local games it's very easy to tailor to your meta without having to go outside your codex. Horde problems? Take more serpents. People at your store like terminators? Hornets are cheap, and suncanons are accurate. Knights? Maybe some deepstriking fire dragons to run around their ion shield. Tau fell from top tier because they have to tailor their lists to beat certain armies. Eldar don't have to; but when they do they can tailor on a level that Tau only dreamed of.

In short: Eldar has access to a lot of very powerful units and special rules that make many of their units more powerful and versatile than their equivalents in other codices.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Eldar killed John F Kennedy.

You have no idea the horrors that would have befallen our species if he'd been allowed to live, mon-keigh. And stop searching for clues on that grassy knoll. Our ranger assassin was much farther away when he took his shot.

Eldar are filthy xenos scum who dare deny the Emperor and therefore deserve the hatred of every Emperor loving citizen.


But to be serious, I think that everything there is is hated by somebody, people sometimes try to mock or annoy me because i play as the Blood Ravens. i can only imagine what Ultramuhreen players feel like.